AIBU to think I'm not 'goulish' for visiting Auschwitz?

[HumperdinkFangboner]

DH and I are going to Krakow early next year, with the intention of visiting Auschwitz and Birkenau. My Granddad's best friend was briefly imprisoned there during the war and he often spoke to us about it when we were children.

Mentioned it to a friend and she called me a Ghoul so I mentioned it to some other people and I get the impression that people think we're a bit odd.

Just wondering if it's in some way insensitive to visit?

I'm a snob, but you're a twat, Pauline love. lol.

eh, Pauline, can you read?

I think it qualifies as a tourist site on the basis that it is an important historical site that has been damaged as a consequence of reconstructions and the volume of visitors. They have now closed large parts of it to visitors though, so that it can be preserved for the future.

is it ghoulish without the connection, dittany?

my point is that if you want fast food go to your local McD's not Auchwitz, I would have thought that was obvious

people can have a connection to people they have read about in books though...

I remember being v traumatised as a teenager reading about it.

I don't think it is ghoulish at all, but can understand why people don't go....

I went because my Ex DP (we are still good friends) lost a lot of his family there...

pmsl @ the burger queen taking the moral high ground. Calling me a snob isn't a personal attack, then?

Anyway, this is detracting from the point of the thread, which is that it's not by definition ghoulish to visit a concentration camp and I can see why many people would wish to go there to bear witness/respect the dead, but if you're going because you expect to be 'entertained' by it, then yes, imho you're a ghoul.

Not ghoulish at all.

I think it's now an important reminder of what really happened and what must never happen again.

We studied WW2 at school when I was 12 and they didn't once mention the camps to us. When I was studying and found photo's in a book I was shocked but also furious that something so important had been kept from us.

I would go, I think it is important to acknowledge these places and when you have a personal reason to go (or just feel incredibly moved and sorry for what when on there) it is a way to show respect to the people who suffered and died there.

I think you are the one with the strange logic tbh, although I don't remember needing the loo while I was there (had other things on my mind) so don't remember if there were loos or not....

I think the whole point of Auschwitz is that if you're human, then you have a connection to it, both as a potential victim and as a potential perpetrator.

I'm not sure it is respectful to spend millions of dollars repairing non-deliberate damage to Auschwitz by tourists when one of the other camps is now being used as a pig farm. I would rather money was spent conserving all of the camps that were not destroyed by the Nazis, even if that meant very little was open for visitors to walk around within the most visited camps, with the exception of those close to the victims.

Ah come off it Pauline. This is not about you.

yes i can see the 'appeal' more if you have a personal connection, there does seem to be more honour in that, iykwim?

how do people possibly go and take grinning photos, those of you who have been? what do you think they reckon they are participating in?

This thread has taken a very strange turn...